Chapter 80: Decision

With time to spare, he reactivated his system communication, which he had previously disabled to avoid interruptions while going to speak to the Magistrate.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

The moment it came online, a flood of requests poured in, hundreds of messages and call attempts, mostly from major Guild representatives in Golden Card City. Some were even vice-leaders and high-ranking officers. Unsurprisingly, familiar names like Life and Anonymous appeared in the list.

Getting into Golden Card City early was a massive strategic edge. Details like top leveling spots, high-reward quests, and item vendors were tightly guarded until someone entered and explored.

For Guilds, this kind of info could mean the difference between dominating or falling behind.

With many Guilds nearing level ten and gaining access to the city, they were desperate to secure an inside source. And Yone, already inside, was the only one with the knowledge they needed.

Unable to contact him while communications were off, their only option had been to leave messages, which wasn’t any different from before, to be fair, but leaving those messages would make him feel even more at ease, and now his inbox was overflowing.

’I had always ignored these people’s message since it was just early levels, but let us have an idea on the general trend of their messages right now,’ Yone thought with a slight smile.

Since he had time, Yone skimmed messages from the most promising Guilds. Selling intel was unavoidable; rejecting everyone would just make more enemies for him, and that’s not something a smart person would do.

Butting heads with one or two guilds could be seen as fine if they were not the strongest, but more than that? That would be suicidal and stupid.

But he’d still choose carefully. Allies like Life and Anonymous would get a friendly deal. The rest? He’d extract as much value as possible without compromising his own edge.

Even so, deciding what to share and what to keep gave him a headache.

Not long after Yone entered Golden Card City, the entire region’s player base fell into a frenzy. Major Guilds rushed to form grinding parties, racing to gain levels and reach the city.

But the deeper they ventured into high-level zones, the more issues they faced. Beyond the fierce competition and overcrowding, even weapon durability had become a serious problem.

“Still no sign of the Lavastones?” Anonymous asked over team chat. “We can’t lose the advantage we have on the other guilds, Legends is leveling like crazy with the lead of their new leader.”

“They just finished crafting a batch. It’s on the way now, leader,” a Healer replied.

“How many do we have?”

“Five stacks. So, 100 Lavastones total.”

Anonymous’s expression darkened. “Just 100? We gave them over 300 Lava Stones!”

With more than 60 players grinding Level 9 to 10 mobs, those 100 Lavastones would barely keep them going for an hour. Each stack gave them two potions, so 100 Lava Stones were merely ten potions.

For 60 players, such a number was negligible and even overlooked.

“We already used all 300,” the Healer explained. “Everyone’s from the NPCs trying to craft them right now, the market’s dry. We’ve even sent newbies to grind Lava Stones in Lake Forest, but the drop rate is non-existent.”

Worse still, everyone started feeling that after their initial full buy of Lava stones, the market would run completely dry since they all began thinking that the drop for such stones was in a very secretive spot.

The Healer looked embarrassed. They’d invested time and resources into searching for the mobs that and zones that dropped the stones, but so far, the return had been almost nothing.

“Hah…” Anonymous let out a deep sigh. He grew worried as he listened to his subordinate’s report.

Only now did he realize the importance of resources in Eclpise Online; he at first neglected that fact and mainly focused on farming levels and grinding gear, never did he imagine that resources were this important.

End World was never like this, and resources, buying and selling things were important, yes, but their importance and the money they brought was nowhere close to the top players’ value if we speak solely based on how much money they bring.

’I need to speak to my sister and Night about this, this is far more complex than what I initially expected,’ Anonymous gritted his teeth and made a call.

“Little sister, the market is dried up, and all stores and stalls inside the town are saying we run out of stones. What should we do?” He paused for a moment before continuing,” I have also sent teams to look for the zones they drop in and monsters related to them, but to no avail; we found nothing.”

Silence…

Several seconds of silence descended on the call before HealtheWorld’s voice was heard from the other end of the call.

“I see, I’ll convey this message to Night, but you don’t have to worry much, we have already expected this and are now trying to recruit people for such jobs.” On the other end of the call, HealtheWorld was frowning as she hung up and called Night.

“Big brother, its as you exactly anticipated, this game isn’t about just farming, taking the loot and selling and repeat like End World, we missing something, and it is most likely what you mentioned,” HealtheWorld said with a low voice, a hint of worry in her tone was visible.

“Yes, seems like we’re gonna have to build several teams of blacksmiths, alchemists, and several other lifestyle players to regenerate the flow of liquid gold into our guild,” Night placed both his hands under his chin as he closed his eyes for a moment and then spoke.

“Buy information on how to nurture such players and recruit as many as possible. Nothing is important right now except recruiting as many as possible, so don’t place a big deterrent by experience and such.”

“Yes brother, I’ll make sure to accomplish the task,” With that, HealtheWorld ended the call and went to work, her face brightening up as she felt she would enjoy this game much more than End World that she got to play for only a few years.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep